Australia and New Zealand are major livestock producing countries, and USDA says that could create additional opportunities for American feed products. Luke Lindberg, USDA Undersecretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, recently traveled to both countries as part of a U.S. agricultural trade mission. While Australia and New Zealand are already mature markets, Lindberg says USDA still sees opportunities to grow U.S. market share.
One area of particular interest is supplying ingredients used by livestock producers, including dried distillers’ grains and soybean meal.
“Yeah, it’s definitely a little bit of both. We can see increases in market share in some of our product categories,” said Lindberg.
“You know, for example, both countries have a heavy livestock industry, and we would love to see more dried distillers’ grains and soybean meal going in to help feed their livestock industries,” Lindberg added.
Expanding those markets could have benefits well beyond the companies actually shipping feed overseas. Dried distillers’ grains are a co-product of ethanol production, while soybean meal is produced when soybeans are processed for oil.
Finding additional international buyers for those products helps create another source of demand for U.S. corn and soybeans.
Audio Reporting by Elizabeth Sanders for Southeast AgNet.